Shazam! Fury of the Gods
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 This movie will make you say its tagline, "Oh. My. Gods."
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Shazam! Fury of the Gods is a 2023 American superhero film based on the DC character Shazam. Produced by New Line Cinema, DC Studios, and the Safran Company, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the sequel to Shazam! (2019) and the 12th installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). Directed by David F. Sandberg and written by Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan, it stars Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Rachel Zegler, Adam Brody, Ross Butler, D. J. Cotrona, Grace Caroline Currey, Meagan Good, Lucy Liu, Djimon Hounsou, and Helen Mirren. In the film, Billy Batson / Shazam and his foster siblings fight the Daughters of Atlas.
Plot
Two years after Thaddeus Sivana's defeat, Hespera and Kalypso, daughters of the Titan Atlas, break into the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece, and steal the Wizard's broken staff. They take it to the Wizard, imprisoned in the Gods' Realm, and force him to repair the staff to reactivate its powers. In Philadelphia, Billy Batson and his "Shazamily" drift apart as they grow up and pursue their interests. Billy is worried about being kicked out of the Vasquez family when he turns eighteen. In a dream, the Wizard warns him about the Daughters of Atlas, prompting the Shazamily to begin researching them.
Freddy Freeman meets a new girl named Anne, to whom he shows off his superhero self. Hespera and Kalypso arrive with the staff and steal Freddy's powers, and Anne is revealed to be their youngest sister, Anthea. Billy and the Shazamily attempt to save Freddy, but the daughters kidnap him and place an indestructible dome around the city, trapping everyone inside. Freddy is imprisoned with the Wizard in the Gods' Realm. The Shazamily enter the Rock of Eternity, where they encounter a sentient pen named Steve, which they use to draft a letter to negotiate with Hespera for Freddy's release.
Billy meets Hespera at a local restaurant, and, while the meeting is initially cordial, she and Kalypso soon fight the Shazamily. Pedro loses his powers during the fight, while Hespera is captured and taken to the Rock. Having planned her capture, Hespera easily breaks out and steals the Golden Apple, the seed of the Tree of Life. Meanwhile, Freddy and the Wizard attempt to escape the Gods' Realm with a sympathetic Anthea's help, just as Hespera returns with the Apple. The Daughters argue as Hespera and Anthea want to use the Apple to revive their realm, while Kalypso wishes to plant it on Earth to destroy it. Freddy steals the Apple but is discovered. Billy and the Shazamily show up, and Freddy reacquires his powers.
Billy and the Shazamily emerge with the Wizard at the Vasquez home, where they reveal their secret identities to their foster parents. Kalypso appears with the dragon Ladon to acquire the Apple and destroy the Vasquez house. The family attempts to keep the apple away from Kalypso, but everyone except Billy loses their powers in the skirmish. Kalypso retrieves the Apple and uses it to plant the Tree at Citizens Bank Park, which spawns various monsters to attack the city. Hespera and Anthea object to their sister's destructive plan, but Kalypso mortally wounds Hespera and de-powers Anthea. Billy, in despair, asks the Wizard to revoke his powers, but the Wizard assures him that he is a true hero worthy of them.
Heeding the Wizard's words, Billy flies off to stop Kalypso, while the Shazamily enlists the help of unicorns to fend off the other monsters. Billy persuades a dying Hespera to help him stop Kalypso. Realizing the dome reacts violently to his lightning, Billy lures Kalypso to the park while Hespera shrinks the dome to contain them. Billy sacrifices himself to stop Kalypso and Ladon by overloading the staff with electricity, destroying the Tree and Kalypso's army with them. Hespera acknowledges him as a true god before succumbing to her wounds, causing the dome to disappear.
Anthea takes Billy's grieving family to God's Realm for his burial. Diana Prince, the Amazon princess with godly powers, appears and repairs the staff, imbuing it with her power and using it to revive the Gods' Realm, restore Anthea's powers, and resurrect Billy. Billy, in turn, uses the staff to restore his siblings' powers. The Shazamily rebuilds their home, while Anthea and Freddy start a relationship and the Wizard takes up residence on Earth.
In a mid-credits scene, Emilia Harcourt and John Economos invite Billy into the Justice Society on behalf of Amanda Waller, but Billy declines. In a post-credits scene, a still-incarcerated Sivana encounters Mister Mind once again, enraged that he has not begun enacting their plan.
Furious Qualities
- Weak, pathetic, and half-baked story that looks like they filmed a first draft.
- Bad release date: It was released weeks before Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and John Wick: Chapter 4 and a month before The Super Mario Bros. Movie, all of which are far better movies than this and would do a lot better at the box office (especially in Mario's case, as that film made over $1 billion at the box office), causing this movie to flop, and possibly kill the Shazam! film series.
- The characters are pathetic and underdeveloped here (some returning ones have even hit flanderization territory), especially this film's antagonist, Kalypso, who felt underwhelming compared to Thaddeus Sivana in the first Shazam film.
- The weak direction of David F. Sandberg.
- The humor as it tries so hard to make every line of dialogue a comedy sketch, but fails miserably, and ends up becoming sloppy as a result.
- Despite the film overall using a lot of large-scale CGI sound and fury, the CGI, much like another film that would come out one year later, is incredibly hit or miss. Sometimes it looks incredible. And other times, it looks like it could come out of a 2000s movie, especially the CGI monsters, which are somehow the worst parts of this film's CGI.
- Completely uneven pacing throughout the film, most notably the final battle, which is so long that it feels like compensating for a lack of engaging ideas.
- Disappointing ending credits sequence, which is such a shame, considering this film would have made way for an incredible one.
- This along with Harold and the Purple Crayon ruined Zachary Levi's reputation, only worsened by the mentioned film as well, since Levi would later go on to descend into a far-right conservative monster by being anti-vax, relied heavily on his Christianity, and blamed fans and critics for the failure of this film.
Godlike Qualities
- While the CGI is indeed hit or miss, some parts of it can look impressive, and the CGI overall is an improvement over Black Adam
- Despite being underdeveloped and some of them hitting flanderization, most of the characters still retain their likability, especially Billy Batson/Shazam himself
- Decent acting, especially from Zachary Levi.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 49% of 263 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "More unfocused and less satisfying than its predecessor, Shazam! Fury of the Gods still retains almost enough of the source material's silly charm to save the day." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 47 out of 100, based on 49 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 78% positive score, with 64% saying they would recommend it.
Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a mixed review, writing: "Like some children who aren't so cute anymore after they've grown up a little, this follow-up lacks much of the appeal of its predecessor. While the film provides the elaborate action-set pieces, colorful villains, and save-the-world plot mechanics expected of the comic-book-movie genre, some of the magic is missing." Chicago Sun-Times's Richard Roeper gave the film two out of four stars, writing, "As we pick up Billy/Shazam's story about four years later, it quickly becomes apparent this is just going to be a by-the-numbers, second-tier adventure with only a few small chuckles and one or two genuinely touching moments. The rest is just noise."